Symmetry
by sillythings
Summary: Moriarty didn't really need to date Molly. He just wanted to. I've now combined "Reality" with this as a second chapter added a third new chapter which completes the piece.
1. Chapter 1

Symmetry

Jim Moriarty did not intend to date Molly Hooper. Everything he wanted to know about Sherlock, he could have gotten from the friendly work relationship they already had established. He frequently entered her domain, doing repairs, helping her recover files, turn on spell check (he understood—when you need your brain to focus on complex things, the little, generally useless facts get lost—deleted). Many times, she huffed into her office, angry, offended by Sherlock's sharp tongue. Other times, her eyes would be sparkling, her cheeks pink as she chattered about how she assisted the consulting detective in an experiment that uncovered new evidence. Sometimes she just gushed about his cleverness: "He knew just because the ladder was green! How is that even possible, " she laughed.

So, no, he didn't really need to date her. Yet, Sherlock had clearly claimed her as his own. Why? Was it Professional? Romantic? Such a primal instinct! He was surprised to find it in Sherlock. It triggered in him a primal instinct of his own, a need to mark her for himself. It was childish really, the same impulse that made schoolboys grab a mate's cap off his head or steal a packet of cigarettes from the shops, not because they especially want or need to, but just because they can, just because they know it would annoy. St. Augustine and his pears, the long forgotten Catholic schoolboy in him thought—

He watched her through the viewing window as she performed the autopsy of a 45 year old man found murdered in the back of a local bar. Not much of mystery since there were several witnesses who saw who bashed him in the back of the head. No Sherlock needed for this case. Even so, her calm efficiency, eyes lighting up when she discovered an interesting defect in his heart, as she carefully cut a grown man down to his essential parts compelled Moriarty to linger even though the odds of running into the consulting detective were slim.

He was in her small office, ostensibly doing a system update on her computer when she came in after the postmortem, smelling of latex, hospital grade soap, and ever so faintly, something earthy, literally visceral. His eyes were drawn to the rusty drop of blood on her lab coat, dark red against the pure white. She followed his gaze and grinned sheepishly, "They got me!" she gasped clutching her belly, and he gamely pantomimed pulling a trigger. He chuckled thinly before it became a feral smile… somehow Jim from IT was just a bit difficult to channel in the presence of that red droplet.

"What's it like?" he asks, his voice lilting, high pitched. She's scanning files on her desk, looking for a paper that's slipped its binder and doesn't look up.

"What's what like?" she asks absently, still sorting. He stares at the red drop.

"Cutting people open like that?" he asks, letting a bit of wonder creep into his voice. It's not such an act that curiosity, that wonder. He's killed people, oh yes, he has. It's just that he's never really had an opportunity or honestly, the desire, to take them apart afterward, to study what he has done, what he has destroyed. He tended to work from a distance, pulling the strings, staying clean. He often had blood on his hands metaphorically, rarely literally. Yet, here was this petite, good-hearted woman who was often up to her elbows in gore, in the bowels of the dead. Such a bad man with such clean hands. Such a good woman with such dirty hands. A nice sort of symmetry.

She stops flipping through the stacks now, and looks up, her expression guarded. Here was the question again. After the endless coffee breaks and friendly conversations, the question they all asked eventually. The question that usually signaled the beginning of the end.

"I don't know quite how to answer that. Unless you've done it, it's hard to explain," she said as if by rote. She was looking at him, searching his face _Why do you want to know _the look said. Did he think she think she was weird? Kind of kinky? Was he weird? Was he kinky? The answer was, of course, yes to all those questions, but they really didn't have anything to do with what he was asking.

"Do you like to do it?" he asked looking at her directly, he voice dropping a pitch. With a carefully blank expression, Molly said, "I like my job. I'm very good at what I do."

"But how does it make you feel?" His eyes were black and bottomless as he stared back into her eyes.

She paused, considering those eyes, and in a small voice answered, "Powerful." Silence reigned for a moment as they studied each other.

"And so you are" he spoke softly, understanding in his voice. He smiled again, pointy canines flashing, and moved closer. He reached out one slim finger and touched the red drop. Molly's brow furrowed at this strange intimacy, tilting her head up just in time for him to capture her sweet mouth with his own.


	2. Chapter 2

**Reality**

_Molly breaks Moriarty down into his essential parts and briefly lets go of a fantasy. A companion piece to _**Symmetry.**

The show was over, the wine gone. Jim and Molly sat on her sofa making awkward small talk.

"I can't believe I never saw that show before," Jim laughed. "It was funny."

Molly smiled back, "Oh, yes. I like the musical parts, myself."

A pause as they both looked down and then up, catching the other's eye. More nervous laughter. What were they, Molly thought, fourteen-years-old? Were they not adult professionals at the end of a very pleasant second date? Would he stop with that silly giggle and do something? Jim looked at her closely. His eyes glittering with some emotion or thought she couldn't quite label, he politely asked, "May I kiss you?"

Biting her lip, Molly nodded tilting her head up. Jim pressed his warm lips to her small, sweet mouth, lightly resting his hands on her waist. It was a nice kiss. A gentle kiss, and with nothing of the intensity of the kiss he had given her in her office, the day she confessed to him how powerful doing a postmortem made her feel. Perhaps she had imagined the feeling that day? The power in him, the dangerous slide of his tongue? As his mouth moved tentatively over her own, she wondered briefly, very briefly what it would feel like if his lips were a little fuller, a little pinker with more of a pronounced cupid's bow. She caught her breath at the thought and her mouth opened as she began to kiss Jim back eagerly. She could sense it as Jim opened his eyes and looked down at her, feeling the change in her response. Her eyes were closed, not looking at him as she did mental battle with herself. She tried to slam the door on the thoughts of those other lips, but too late…It had been too long since she had been touched, since she had allowed herself to think about such things, and her closely kept fantasies took control.

Jim kissed her deeply, one hand moving to entwine itself in her hair, the other slipping under the hem of her blouse to stroke the soft skin of her lower back, just above the waistband of her trousers. She moved her hands over his warm, well muscled back and shoulders, slim but sturdy, wondering if the pale skin of another man's back were so warm, so muscled. She could feel Jim smiling against her lips—Oh, God, he couldn't read her mind. He couldn't. She forced herself to open her eyes, to look at him, but he ducked his head to nibble on her earlobe and place damp, nibbling kisses on her neck, her collar bone, the valley between her breasts, that part of her just exposed by her open collar to his seeking mouth. It had been too long, and with just these few kisses and the forbidden thoughts running through her head, she was close. He lifted his head and sought her lips again with his own. She sighed into his mouth, and he pressed against her, a solid thigh between her legs. The hand stroking her back moved to the front and slipped down.

"No, oh don't," she protested weakly, not wanting to embarrass herself, but it was too late. Too little touch in far too long and she was overcome, with just a few gentle kisses and a few strokes of his warm fingers. She quivered and breathed holding on to him tightly.

"Was that okay?" the Irish lilt breathed into her ear, not the deep baritone her mind had almost tricked her into thinking it would be. She buried her face in his neck, nodding. She burned with mortification. She was bad. Oh, she was one of the worst people to think those things about Sherlock while Jim, sweet, goofy Jim, held her. She forced herself to pull back and look up at him. He was studying her with a look that was almost frightened her. It was a knowing smile, a wicked smile. Was that a hint of sadness in those black eyes? Resignation? He knows. He knows. Molly's already thudding heart sped up. Her eyes ran over his face, staring into bottomless eyes. Suddenly, the Jim she sensed in the office that day was back. Power and masculinity and something a bit more dangerous and manic emanated from this man whose warm body pressed her into the sofa. Right, then.

She pushed him away so she could sit up, and when he was sitting upright next to her again, she grasped the hem of his t-shirt and tugged. Looking surprised, he obligingly lifted his arms and let her strip it off of him. She looked at him with a professional eye. She knew what his muscles looked like if she stripped them of that pale creamy skin. If she lifted off his ribcage, she would find a heart and other hot viscera, beating red and blue and silvery-white. Under that soft skin and firm muscle of his abdomen, with its light trail of black hair, his bowels were frilled loops, and here, she lifted her eyes to his face, she knew just what she would find if she popped off the top of his skull. The essential Jim. Yes. Here he was, present and real.

Jim's eyes were rather wild as he watched her scrutinize him. The desperate hands that reached out to her, pulled her to him again had a strange reverence in the way they touched her, finding her bare skin again beneath her blouse. She sat astride him, and as she felt his need press into her, she reveled in the solid reality of his desire. She knew how to take a man's body apart and put him back together again. She did it everyday.


	3. Chapter 3

Dinner at The Fox had been awkward—unusually awkward, not the typical awkward that ensued when little Molly and Jim from IT were in the same room together. Molly was tense. Jim seemingly oblivious.

He'd seen her home, followed her inside. He leaned in for a kiss, his eyes warm with anticipation. She put a hand on his chest to stop him.

"Are you gay?" Molly blurted out. "It's okay, if you are…you know, gay. But I think you should be honest with me." How could she have been so blind? He didn't seem gay. But what did gay look like? He could be bisexual or… but he had enjoyed her body. He had adored her body, every inch of her. With him, she'd had quite possibly the most incredible sexual experience of her life. She was no innocent. She'd had relationships—maybe not many, but even so. What occurred between Jim and her had been almost transcendent. Just her luck that he also happened to prefer men.

"You think I'm gay?" Jim seemed amused, incredulous. "After the other night. After what we did?" He reached out to stroke her hair back and she pulled away. "Why would you even think that?" He seemed genuinely confused.

"Why did you give him your number?" she demanded, angry.

"Who?" Jim asked. His eyes clearly said that he knew who she was talking about. He wanted to hear her say it.

"You know who, " she hissed, "You humiliated me."

Jim considered her glistening, angry eyes. Her soft brown hair. Oh, she was a pretty, little thing. He had been enjoying her.

"It's a game," he answered, quite truthfully. She sensed he was telling the truth, but it didn't make any sense.

"A game?" still disbelieving. "What are you even talking about?"

"Of course a game! He deduced exactly what I wanted him to. Did he mention my underwear?" Jim grinned wolfishly. "You must have recognized they weren't the same brand I had on the other night, now. You aren't bad with details and deductions yourself, my little pathologist."

Molly didn't reply, but her face revealed the answer to his question. What in the world was going on here?

He chuckled rubbing his hands over his face, through his hair. "God, he's so obvious, isn't he? Is he even worth the trouble," he seemed to be speaking to himself before he glanced up at Molly again. "_He's _not gay, by the way" Jim said, almost kindly. Her mouth dropped open as she stared at him.

"It hurts, doesn't it, that he has a new playmate? Someone new to play detective with. And John's a doctor, too. He's replaced you, hasn't he? But don't worry, Molly, it's not about your incompetence. You are more than capable. He wouldn't work with you if you weren't. But you have tits, and though they are glorious, he is terrified of them. Sherlock doesn't know what to do with you, sweetheart. " He smiled, almost cheerful, before his gaze lost focus, "I wonder if he's a virgin…wouldn't that be funny?"

Molly sat stunned. Jim's sharp focused returned to her, narrowed eyes. She was pinned under his gaze.

"Though he wouldn't be if you had your way," the cheeriness was gone, replaced with venom. The shift in emotion caused her hackles to raise. Here was the danger again. The raw masculine power that he had put to such glorious use the other night was back.

"You're not jealous," Molly stated flatly, "You're not…" Guilt (fear) was beginning to replace her righteous anger. Tits, indeed! It was only the one time she'd indulged that little fantasy. She hadn't meant it. She hadn't. She showed him how much she didn't mean it, didn't she? All her focus was on Jim, after she…after her mental indiscretion. He'd seemed more than satisfied at the time. And he…no, he wasn't gay.

"I think we both know Sherlock was in bed with us that night. And it wasn't because of me."

"He wasn't…" began Molly hotly, "I didn't think of him while we were.."

"Well, okay, maybe not in bed. But surely on the sofa," Jim's eyes glittered—mocking, angry—"A little mental menage a three? I think he would have appreciated the fact that it was all purely of the mind. Because, let's be honest, lady parts scare the dickens out of—"

"Shut up." Molly's voice was tight. He face was deathly pale. There was ice in her heart. In her veins. She could feel the cold prickles on her neck, her face. "Shut up!" she hissed, whispering, vicious.

"Don't you tell me, little girl," Jim hissed back. "It's just the truth. I thought you liked men who deduced you?"

"Why are you acting like this," Molly shook her head, genuinely frightened now. "Who are you?"

Jim's face fell, almost sad he looked now. "I'm exactly who you think I am," he murmured. But who did she think he was? He was a different man altogether from one moment to the next. Sweet. Vicious. Tentative. Passionate.

"Who are you?" she said again, quietly, looking deeply into his eyes. She lifted a hand to his face. He turned and let his cheek be cradled in her palm. He sighed and closed his eyes.

"Just Jim Moriarty from IT," he said, reaching up to hold her hand to his face. "God, Molly, I'm so tired." She brought up the other hand to stroke his hair, the back of his neck. What was he saying? What did this mean? He opened his eyes again and stared into her wondering gaze for a long moment.

He leaned into her, and she opened her arms to embrace him. He buried his face in her neck and her hair. He wasn't crying. No, but there was some great emotion pouring off of him in waves. She held him for a long time, listening to her neighbors coming home from a night out, seeing the lights of passing cars outside her living room window as Toby prowled along the ledge. Such an ordinary peaceful night in some ways. Her mind was racing, but she stayed still for him, stroking his back, his hair.

After a very long while, he pulled back and looked at her in the face. He seemed calmer as he traced her jawline and lips reverently with his index finger. "So pretty. So strong. Will you stay strong for me, Molly?" he asked gently. It terrified her. Stay strong for what?

She nodded and swallowed. Her mouth was so dry.

"Bless you," he whispered and lowered his mouth to hers. A goodbye. A sacrament. A promise.

And then he was gone. Gone as if he had never existed. For months, she worried and wondered until she didn't need to wonder any longer.

In the aftermath, the bombings, the kidnappings, the terror, she justified, to everyone who asked. To herself.

"Jim wasn't my boyfriend. We only went out three times. " Molly said earnestly (a well practiced speech), twisting her hands. Only three dates, but how many coffee breaks? Lunches in the canteen? Silly jokes in the office. No, not a boyfriend. An admirer? A monster! A user—oh, but wasn't she the same? She really wasn't as different as she wanted to pretend. "I ended it." Molly was lofty. _Don't you dare chide me for being with him, Sherlock Holmes, when it's your fault I was with him in the first place!_ Though Sherlock wasn't why she stayed, not why there were three whole dates after the endless coffee and lunches. Not why she had kissed him goodbye with such tenderness.

She loved Sherlock. She hated Moriarty. She wasn't quite sure how she felt about Jim.


End file.
